“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.” — Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948)

Not quite my farm life in rural Wisconsin

As a writer, I find myself delving into all sorts of things I never imagined I would as a young girl growing up in rural Wisconsin. There were about 12,251 people in my hometown and not a single one of them was black. Not one. I don’t remember any brown people, either. While there were a few Asians (doctors and their families), the people of color were primarily Native American. And they were generally discussed derisively. Growing up gay in the upper Midwest was (and still is) challenging. It made me sensitive to what it means to be the other, the outsider.

The Civil Rights Movement, The AIDs Movement and the Women’s Movement were a big deal to me. I sang the Desiderata and Abraham, Martin and John at the top of my lungs. I marched. I chanted. I volunteered. I burned for the Apartheid Movement. As a child, I believed we were making the world a better place for everyone. So, it will probably be no surprise that the events in Ferguson and plethora of postings about the current state of the Civil Rights Blackslide has me distressed.

I’ve spent the last three years researching the Symbionese Liberation Army and the women at the heart of that tragic movement. During that research, I discovered that the Gun Rights Movement and Second Amendment Insanity is firmly rooted in the Black Panther Movement of the 1960′s. On May 2, 1967, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale led 24 men and six (6) women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45 caliber pistols to the state capitol in Sacramento. Citing an obscure state statute which made it legal to carry loaded weapons if the were not concealed, Seale said, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” Decades of abuse at the hands of unchecked police brutality, the Panthers decided to take up arms.

The Pathers’ efforts provoked an immediate backlash. Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” California passed the Mulford Act prohibiting carrying loaded weapons but the spark had be ignited.

Founded on November 17, 1871, The National Rifle Association was primarily an organization for sportsmen and hunters until the Black Panther actions of the 60′s and early 70′s. In 1977, Wayne LaPierre joined the NRA and, over the next two decades, lobbied and catalyzed it into the overwhelmingly powerful organization that it is today.

In the past six years, I’ve helped with the distribution of two indie docs and one indie feature. Over the years, we’ve developed a set of practices and resources that might help other indie filmmakers. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing what I know to help other indie filmmakers!

Here is my point of view:

In the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, there were 4,057 feature films submitted for consideration and 8,161 short films. Of those 12,217 submissions, there were only 119 features and 66 shorts that were actually accepted. Of the accepted 119 features, 45 were eventually picked up for distribution. So, if you are one of the 2.9% chosen for Sundance, you have a 38% chance for successful distribution. (Entertainment Media Partners and Cultural Weekly)

Other film festivals have their own set of statistics. some are easier to get into, some have lower distribution success. Overall, for the indie filmmaker, a RESPECTED film festival is still the best route (use WITHOUTABOX.COM and Chris Gore’s film festival guide book to maximize your chance of success. If you are unsuccessful on the festival route, we’ll be covering these other avenues.

“We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, this accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody when, in fact, everybody’s nobody.”— Detective Rustin Cohle

“I wouldn’t go around spouting that shit, I was you. People around here don’t think that way.”— Detective Martin Hart

Saturn Devouring His Son

About 15 minutes into the first episode of TRUE DETECTIVE, Rust and Marty have an exchange that revealed the core difference in the values of the detectives and the locals. Like most everyone else, I thought this exchange was setting up the driving force of the series. We have Rust espousing that he thinks none of us are special but he dedicates his life to catching and punishing those who actually act on that philosophy. The people who treat others like they are nothing, who use and abuse them for their own sick pleasures, those who live with a total disregard for the value of others, THOSE are the people Rust (and Marty) spend their lives trying to capture. In episode 7, Rust says, “Be careful what you get good at.” They both got good at collecting debts. But those debts are only owed if each life is valuable, if each life is *not* nothing.

So, in the sixth episode, when we were introduced to Telios de Lorca, I hoped that Pizzolatto was setting up the competing value systems and the big reveal. To me, Telios de Lorca signaled that there was a group who used mysticism and the compulsion of ecstasy to justify their kidnapping, raping, and murder of women and children. Dozens, if not hundreds, of women and children. A group would have to have a powerful and compelling belief in a Supreme Deity and their Supreme Right to use these women and children in any manner they saw fit. This need for ecstasy was coupled with the connection to Garcia Lorca and his explanation of the “dark soul” that arises and makes you act and create in unimaginable ways. We always hope that the uncontrollable inner drive is for good but, as we all know, that hidden soul can create serials killers and ritual abusers, too.

In the case of TRUE DETECTIVE, it appeared that Pizzolatto put Reverend Billy Lee Tuttle and his cousin (Governor then Senator) Eddie Tuttle in the group committing compulsive, dark crimes. I could easily imagine Billy Lee Tuttle arguing that their cause was just because God had put him in a position to set up all these schools that provided the many sacrificial lambs the group required. I could imagine Eddie Tuttle arguing that his high political position was proof that they were God’s chosen ones. And Miss Dolores told us to “Rejoice” because Death was not the end. She knew Carcosa and thought it brought divinity.

Criminal Mastermind Errol

It was perfect. The argument between those who use the disenfranchised and those who protect them. The collision of the righteous and the right. I was delighted. Delighted, I tell you. And, I believed Pizzolatto to be the new Messiah of series television.

And then I watched the last to episodes. I had my “come-to-Jesus” moment and it was a savage, abrupt, and brutal loss of faith. I languished in the pits of hell for most of Monday, wailing and gnashing my teeth. It was not a pretty sight. I felt like SATURN DEVOURING HIS CHILDREN (painting above by Goya, created late in his life when he was surely going mad, yet still compelled to create art). I wanted to chew up and spit out TRUE DETECTIVE. I mean, seriously, I am supposed to believe that Errol was the criminal genius who was at the heart of this madness?!? Clearly, the mad fool was me!

I read Pizzolatto had given an interview about Season Two. He said, “I am still fleshing it out. The basic idea: Hard women, bad men, and the secret occult history of the U.S. transportation system.” Sadly, I am the Doubting Thomas of TRUE DETECTIVE now. I do not believe Season Two will deliver a truly satisfying story. Oh, there will be great characters (women this time) and a flashy bunch of chatter that suggests there are dark forces at play. The first half will be brilliant but the second half will wither like the penis on a devout priest. In the final episode, after chasing a giant conspiracy, there’ll be ONE LONE metro driver, standing on an underground track, spewing nonsense while the girls blow him away.

“It’s been weeks since I left my mark. Would that they had eyes to see…… This is Carcosa. Take off your mask.”– Perhaps The King in Yellow
“He’s going to come for you. He’s worse than anybody.”— Terrified woman resembling Maggie’s Mother

Is it Marty or Geraci in the crosshairs? And notice the masked and costumed fellow sneaking off to the right of the screen

The HBO Finale Preview finally has the crosshairs I’ve been seeing in the opening credits. There’s a long-haired, old man in camo shooting from high ground. I sure am not seeing Maggie or her family. Just looks like Errol’s sort of folk defending some hillbilly farm. Only three more hours to wait. I wonder what I’ll do with myself next week.

There’s a storm coming tonight on TRUE DETECTIVE. Miss Dolores’ wind if invisible voices is going to make himself known. Like most of the TD devotees, I’m re-watching all of the episodes to prepare for the finale. I don’t know how I keep noticing new things but I do!

In Episode One, I watched Danny Fotenot interview more closely and I swear you can hear him say, very clearly, “DIDN’T,” when Marty says he heard Marie Fotenot left with her birth Daddy. Am I hearing things? I don’t think so.

In Episode Two, Dora Lange’s mother says she gets “these storms in her head.” She wails and clutches her head, unable to answer any questions about Her daughter. She says it’s the years in dry cleaning that ruined her ravaged hands and her head.

I’m in The camp with the rest if you who think it may be chemical punishment from The Yellow King to anyone who might have wanted to reveal the truth about what happened to their loved ones. I also thought that Dora’s mother’s hands might have been chemically damaged while cleaning “every trace of evidence from her daughter’s body,” before it was posed in the woods.

The family complicity of the power elite like the Tuttle’s, et. al., may be contrasted with the burden of the disenfranchised families on the Bayou.

“I think Rust knew EXACTLY what Maggie was doing there. Do you know why Maggie was there? I do. If you say, to put the final nail in the coffin that was her marriage, I’d say you are correct…but only on the most obvious and superficial level.” — IndyPat

TRUE DETECTIVE episode 3: Michelle Monaghan. photo: Michele K. Short

So, I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with IndyPat about the significance of the symbols, the books, and Maggie’s role in TRUE DETECTIVE. I can say that it was IndyPat who “spoiled” Maggie for me. I was really liking her. I thought she was kind to rust and seemed to pay attention. She had a hound dog for a husband. I was a smitten kitten. And, then, IndyPat shattered my infatuation. I’m posting some of his most compelling Maggie arguments for your consideration!

#1 — MAGGIE IS A MOLE AND RUST’S MINDER — Was the fact that it smashed Marty & Rust’s relationship “unintended” fallout of her nuclear option? I don’t think so..at all. I think that was the prime motive. She was sick of being Marty’s “minder” for the conspirators she is most certainly in cahoots with. No one…any where I go on this topic, seems to question how Marty just “happens” to meet the under age prostitute he made his down payment on way back when. He was carrying what I guess was a T Mobile ad and a shopping (honey-do) list with him as he got out of the car that day. This new, on the wagon Marty…this emasculated Marty…on his Tampon buying excursion. Maggie! Maggie made him the list…Tampons and a new cell phone. Here is the list..I think she knew, through here nameless co-conspirators, where Marty was to go to meet his new “minder”. One he could not possibly resist. It’s all there. The writer of the show said in an interview that the series is not trying to trick you. It’s all there in the first 6 episodes, if you let yourself look. Maggie…is as much as a mole as the police (excluding Marty, the clueless dupe in this tale, that willfully ignores,what is transporting right under his sizable nose) that Rust is surrounded by. He helped Maggie set off her nuke because he realized that his role as overt detective at LA CID had exhausted its usefulness in pursuit of the case. So blow it to hell and see how the other players act in the fall out and go “off grid”. So…Maggie and the teensiest bop prostitute are Tuttle WellSpring Program Alumni, in my read.”

#2 — MAGGIE COACHES THE GIRLS — Anyone who thinks Maggie is a victim in this, isn’t paying attention. When the fuck are we going to really discuss 5 GI Joes surrounding a naked Barbie? When are we really going to discuss the 7 yr old girls sketch version of the Kama Suthra? Maggie makes only a half-assed attempt at getting to the bottom of it. What mom do you know wouldn’t hit the roof over those two issues? Marty? A cop…shrugging it off? Glaringly obvious signs of adolescent sexualization and it just falls to the wayside like she got caught smoking a cigarette or something. I challenge anyone to watch re-watch the scene of Marty, Maggie and the daughter on the couch discussing the drawing. Ignore Marty, because he obviously has less important things to be doing, like watching sports. Pay attention to what the little girl is saying, how she is saying it and most important…pay attention to the eye contact between mother and daughter,

Maggie and Marty Confront Audrey about her drawings. Maggie says, “It makes something that is supposed to be nice – ugly.” Notice how yellow the scene.

If the child’s dialog about the drawings wasn’t coached directly from Maggie, I’ll kiss your ass. It’s right there…the girls eyes say “am I saying this right, mommy” and Maggie’s eyes say “yes, your doing fine, honey..keep going just like we talked about and don’t forget to cry at the end of it” Amazing acting. It’s there if you’ll look. Maggie…ain’t what she seems. Maggie is no victim. When she rides Marty about being absent, it’s not that she wants to be with him, it’s that she doesn’t want him on the case. She hates Marty. She is his “minder” for someone else. Marty’s mistress is the same…all she ever does is pump him for info on the case…after she pumps him for real. Ditto Beth, our under age prostitute who arrives out of the blue. Just some eye candy that Marty can’t resist. If he’s not giving Maggie info anymore, someone has to be his new minder for pillow talk on the case. Who arranged that? Why did Marty need a new phone? Maybe it was on the shopping list along with the tampons. Maggie directed Marty to his new minder. Maggie checked the phone to see is he took the bait. Did she seem really mad to you? Nah, she was glad she was that much closer to not have to watch Marty any more. She’s no victim. She uses her body to bust up Marty and Rust with the added benefit of shutting down the investigation and deep-sixing her marriage, all in 10 hot seconds. That pretty much makes the other mistress/minders pikers, by comparison, also note Beth’s dialog outside the bar that ends with her asking him if he wants to go in for some bourbon. Compare that to Rusts interrogation with the first scar faced suspect. Some tact used. You can even note on Marty’s face…a look that suggests..”where have I heard that before”….but it worked on him nonetheless.

Rust’s Case Place

#3 — OUR MISOGYNY AS AN AUDIENCE ASSUMING THE WOMEN ARE NOT INVOLVED — Could be that the ultimate misogyny indictment of us all may be that we’ve been looking for a brutal and evil Yellow King only to find it was a subtle, yet extremely powerful Queen that ruled Carcosa. Just spit balling here, but I’m no misogynist and I know women can be just as powerful as men and just as brutal. There are women involved on the dark team in this. They aren’t puppets or toadies. They are actively working, watching, controlling and manipulating things for some end. I watched the scene again with Marty and Maggie talking to the young daughter about the pictures she drew. Watch it again. Ignore Marty completely (it’s easy to do). What do you see? The eye contact between mom and daughter says that the entire exchange was coached by Maggie. The daughters eyes say “am I saying it right?” Moms eyes say “yes, keep going….and don’t forget to cry at the end to shut the whole thing down”. So subtle. That’s some serious acting right there. Amazing. Marty is in for a shock so tremendous that I doubt seriously if there will be anything left of him. Underneath every thing he has ignored and taken for granted, horrible things have grown. All the while, Rust bears witness. And I am noticing Roses (Maggie’s dresses and the rose bushes around her parents house) more often too. Now ready to add one more Secret Society to my list of suspects. Chew on that one. Complete with Magi link right there on the home page.

Remember Rust’s early statement that Dora Lange was just “chum in the water.”

The more I read about the history of Mardi Gras and winter festivals, the more convinced I am that I never want to live in Louisiana! Here are a couple of photos purported to be from Instagram accounts from the TRUE DETECTIVE crew. If this is The Yellow King, I hope Cary Fukunaga gives a visual horror of what this would look like coming at you!

Dora Lange’s Mother’s Photo

This photo from Instagram of what may be the Yellow King looks more comical than terrifying …

“Her body is a paraphilic love map. I guarantee you, this wasn’t his first.”— Detective Rustin Cohle at the scene of the 1995 murder of Dora Lange (notice the word CARCOSA in what appears to be blood to the left of the skeleton in the bed in the photograph below)

Welcome to Carcosa and RejoiceWhere Him who eats time shows us that Death is not the end.

Early in Episode 1 of TRUE DETECTIVE, Rust tells us that the Dora Lange murder scene was a “Paraphilic Lovemap.” Rust tells Papania and Gilbough that he had to explain that to Marty. The list a paraphilias is extensive. I had no idea there were such things as Dendophilia (sexual arousal with trees), Agalmatophilia (sexual arousal and interest in mannequins, statues or immobility), or Oculolinctus (sexual arousal from licking eyeballs). Necrophilia (dead), pedophilia (children), autoeroticism (sexual asphyxia), piquerism (stabbing or pricking) and frotteurism (rubbing) have all be prominently featured in tv and film, so those were not a surprise. The length of the list was the surprise.

I had never heard of a lovemap prior to this series. (Oh the things I have learned because of TRUE DETECTIVE!). Anyway, the idea of a “lovemap” was first defined in 1980 by John Money, a psychologist, sexologist and author who specialized in sexual identity, biology of gender and sex-reassignment. Money defined a Paraphilic Lovemap as a prediliction when lust is attached to fantasies and practices that are socially forbidden, disapproved, ridiculed, or penalized; sometimes as the result of residual imprinted memories from certain traumatic or unusual episodes from early childhood, or sometimes the result of various physiological anomalies. Money viewed lovemaps as a “triumph” but further research by the U.S. National Institute of Health suggested they were an insistent, preemptively motivated, but ultimately unsuccessful attempts at recovery from sexual degradation. In layman’s terms, the abused becomes the abuser.

Maggie is a White Star

Given how the story is unfolding with the history of the Tuttle Family, it appears that the “imprinted memories” from certain traumatic episodes from early childhood with an insistent attempt at recovery from sexual degradation is definitely in play.

Several of the REDDIT threads are lamenting that the beginning of the series makes it seem that something supernatural is going on but that it appears that it’s just an average detective show with a “violent, sadistic cult perpetrated by a powerful group.” What is horrifying about TRUE DETECTIVE is that this is “ordinary” and “run of the mill” and “predictable.” Is this sort of multi-generationl, sadistic, paraphilic, sexual abuse cult really that common??

In my digging, I found Ritual Abuse Survivor Website (a site blacklisted by Wikipedia because of the graphic descriptions of rituals), there is a post that is said to be the Story of a Survivor of a Multi-generational Sadistic, Sexual Cult. The description is right out of the TRUE DETECTIVE environment.

The “Survivor” on the site said, “Primary meeting times within the “people” were/are the equinoxes, solstices, moon cycles, planting, harvest and almost all members are agrarians. Ranchers, farmers, farm equipment dealers, veterinarians, forest managers, etc, are interspersed throughout society. When an organization wishes to be secretive, where better than in the middle of thousands of acres of privately owned land, government lands.” This made the whole Mardi Gras, winter celebration, Saturnalia, Lupacanalia, Voudun connection a natural link and location for the show.

The “Survivor” went on to say, “From the age of eight until I was twelve I was used as a sex slave by the people. I was sold by the hour or by the act. My sister and I were photographed having sex together and movies were made. Every person in the people goes through this “tendering” process. Most of my female parts were made during these years, although a few were made by the people for the people. It’s easier for me to speak about the conditioning and violent practices, than the sexual abuse as the latter shattered my psyche.”

The most horrifying thing about TRUE DETECTIVE for me as that this may be more prevalent and real than I had ever thought. The saddest thing is that it is ordinary, boring and predictable. I would rather believe it is only real in TV. Or do we simply accept that Man is the Cruelest Animal?

Today is Mardi Gras and The King in Yellow, The Rex, is none other than filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. I am certain it’s a coincidence but it is quite amusing to me, nonetheless. The filmmaker who is often criticized for glorifying violence and being a misogynist at heart is ruling over all of the merriment and debauchery that is Mardi Gras! Happy Mardi Gras everyone! Remember, then we get on with the suffering, deprivation, and denial that is better known as Lent!

“He didn’t like a woman– See, once she had it done to her, he didn’t like them but that one time. Not after that.” — Miss Delores, former domestic for Sam Tuttle

Marie Fotenot in antler crown is terrorized and abused by men in animal masks.

We finally got to see what happened to Marie Fotenot and it wasn’t good. It’s looking like Sam Tuttle had an insatiable desire for young virgins and he had a who pack of men to help him hunt down, adorn, and discard his little trophies. It’s so hard to watch the grainy video shots of the blindfolded little girl in the antler crown as she is seated on the throne. I keep reminding myself it’s only a film and, at the same time, I remember there are people out there who do things like this and much worse. The final reveal on TRUE DETECTIVE seems to be dark multi-generational Tuttle family practices.

Ironic (or perhaps not) that this week was Mardi Gras in New Orleans today. People often forget that Fat Tuesday is actually the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of deprivation and suffering leading to the resurrection of Christ. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras began in 1856 although it was outlawed for a time because the KKK’s use of the Capuchon (pointy hat) in their terrorizing raids got to be a bit of a problem. So, the Krewes had to petition to get the full festivities of Mardi Gras reinstated including the selection of the REX, the king in the yellow crown who reigns over the parade.

Rust pointed out that Mardi Gras has its roots in Saturnalia, Lupercalia, and Voudun

Vodun cosmology centers around the vodun spirits and other elements of divine essence that govern the Earth, a hierarchy that range in power from major deities governing the forces of nature and human society to the spirits of individual streams, trees, and rocks, as well as dozens of ethnic vodun, defenders of a certain clan, tribe, or nation. More nature worship legitimizing whatever the Tuttles want to do to little girls, little boys, and women. After all, it is in their dark nature and it is these beautiful creations of divine goodness that they are craving.

Saturnalia is another ancient Roman festival honoring Saturn. It was celebrated with a sacrifice at the altar of Saturn and the fesitival’s King of Misrule would lord over the carnival celebration ordering people to do whatever hideous thing struck his fancy. According to our friends at Wikipedia, the Saturnalia reflects the contradictory nature of the deity Saturn himself: “there are joyful and utopian aspects of careless well-being side by side with disquieting elements of threat and danger.” Occurring at the end of the calendar year, in winter, the joyful gift-giving component of Saturnalia led to Christmas as we know it today. What a gift!

Lupercalia was a festival to avert evil spirits and purify the city releasing health and fertility. Back in the days when the survival of the species was not a given, when many children did not live to see adulthood and many women died in childbirth, fertility was the hot-button issue. Every king needed to ensure the continuity of his family line. In many parts of the world, survivability is still a daily concern. Here, it is not, so fertility rites and men sowing their seed as widely as they can seems to be a perversion beyond reason and certainly is outside of my comprehension.

Miss Delores knows Carcosa and tells Rust to rejoice because Death is not the end.

My TRUE DETECTIVE insanity has reached a new level and, I should be taking Fi’s admonition to Rust, I should be afraid. I have now taken to looking for SRT text files (subtitles) for each episode so I can make certain I am getting every word right. When Miss Delores was speaking in this episode, she says much of her dialog off-camera, so I couldn’t see for sure what she was saying.

The format above is how subtitle files are made (something I very recently learned how to do for subtitling a film I’ve been working on). Each entry has an identifying number, the duration based on the timecode, and the dialogue or description. This week, it amused me to notice that entry 666 was Miss Delores asking Rust and Cohle if they knew Carcosa.

“I hope the audience will be pleasantly surprised by the naturalism of the entire story. If you look at the series so far, what seems supernatural actually has real-world causes, like Cohle’s hallucinations, or even the nature of the crime. It has occult portents, but there is nothing supernatural about it.”— Nic Pizzolatto on Season 1 Endgame in Entertainment Weekly

Hattip to @SmittyBarstool for the wonderful Lego Yellow King. “Everything is circular.”

Marty talks to Maggie about being questioned and thanks her for raising their daughters well

Cohle and Hart reveal they are living very isolated half lives since their split

A supernatural resolution is very unlikely, it’s all naturalism

No one in the TRUE DETECTIVE world will reference Chambers book BUT

The King in Yellow brings the notion of cosmic horror and deranged enlightenment to the story

Pizzolatto talks about his influences including Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence

He doesn’t want to cop to anagrams

As a screenwriter and filmmaker, I always come back to the practical aspects of doing a series. What did it take to get that shot, that day, to edit together that story.

So I notice what’s on the walls, what’s in the graphics, what’s in the costumes, how the props are set, the locations that they’re using. All of the pragmatics of what someone had to put into place to make it resonate. And then I think about the money HBO is spending and I keep thinking they’re going to want to protect their franchise.

So, I went looking for the sort of thing Pizzolatto had done in the past. I read reviewS and summaries of his short stories and his novel, GALVESTON. I found the NYTimes Review to be particularly useful. Lehane said Pizzolatto tends to favor the lost souls but his plotting tends to be fairly straight forward and predictable. His burned out male leads tend to try and rescue young prostitutes and broken down women. One of the reviewers said Pizzolatto’s world is populated with people who don’t like life much but cling to it anyway. Many of the reviewers talk about the effort of the main character to redeem their human spirit without ever actually going into anything spiritual. So, I’d already decided he probably wouldn’t go anywhere supernatural or occult. Let’s see if that’s true in the end.